“Oh my God.” Gemma didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t cry. She just stared into space, unable to believe what she’d just heard. “That can’t be. He was fine. He’s never sick.” She tried to remember the last time she had talked to him, and couldn’t. They never had much to say. Their father was a man of few words. He was better and more expressive face-to-face. He was a true Texan and a cowboy until the end.
“Can you come home?” Kate asked, sounding like a child. She felt as though her whole world had caved in. He was the center of her universe.
“Of course. I’ll drive up tonight,” she said quietly, and then hesitated. “I love you, Kate. Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, feeling confused. “I love you too, Gem.” They both knew that Gemma had been his shining star and his favorite, but it didn’t matter now. They had all lost him, and all they had now was each other.
After they hung up, Gemma went to find the director to tell him what had happened and that she had to leave and they’d have to shoot around her for the next few days. They were going on hiatus soon anyway. He told her how sorry he was about her father. She thanked him and left the set a few minutes later in jeans and a T-shirt. She had to go home to pack a bag. She drove to the Hollywood Hills, not even sure where she was going. Everything around her was a blur. The father who had adored her was gone.
* * *
—
Kate called Caroline after that. She answered on speaker in the car. “Where are you?” Kate asked her youngest sister.
“Morgan forgot her lunch. I’m taking it to her at school. Why? Is something wrong?” Kate sounded odd, like she was sick or stoned or drunk, which she never was.
“Yeah,” Kate said, choking on the words again. “It’s Dad.”
“What happened? Did he get hurt?” She didn’t see her family often, but she loved them. She just didn’t want to be with them all the time, or even very frequently. She had always felt out of place with them, she was the invisible person no one ever saw and never knew, and didn’t try to. She was no match for her father or sisters. They were all stronger than she was. And so was Peter. Caroline had been meek all her life.
Kate told her what had happened, and Caroline pulled over off the freeway, and they both cried.
“Does Gemma know?” Caroline asked, feeling breathless. Whatever his failings, he was still her father.
“I just called her,” Kate said, and it wasn’t lost on Caroline that Kate had called Gemma first, and her last. It was always that way. She was the afterthought, even to their father. Even now. “She’s coming home later.” It would take her about three hours from L.A.
“I’ll fly down with Peter and the kids tonight. I have to wait till he comes home from work. I’m sorry, Kate.” Caroline said it as though he was Kate and Gemma’s father, and not hers, and in some ways it was how she felt. Kate loved him, he loved Gemma, and she was always left out. It was why she had left so long ago and never gone back, except for very rare visits once every few years. She had asked herself, What difference would it make to them if she ran away and never came back? She had often pondered that question while she was growing up. And then she’d done it. Ran away and never came back to the ranch to live. She had never regretted it. And now she had to go home, and he was dead. She felt even worse when she realized it had been three months since she had called him. He never called her either, and now he never would again.
Kate was waiting in her house when Gemma arrived at six o’clock. She had wasted no time in L.A., and got on the freeway heading north as soon as she packed a bag. She found Kate sitting in her kitchen. She hadn’t wanted to wait in their father’s house, and intrude on Juliette. Kate had called her to see how she was and she didn’t pick up. She was a very private person, and very French. She needed some time to recover from the shock and grieve on her own, and Kate respected that.
Kate and Gemma sat in Kate’s kitchen and cried about their father again. They each realized that they were mourning entirely different men. The effusive, all-approving, all-forgiving father who thought Gemma could do no wrong, no matter how often she fought with him, or how vicious their fights were, and their words. And the father who had expected Kate to step up to the plate every time, back him in all things, second his decisions, and whom he forgot to praise except when someone reminded him, like Gemma or Thad or Juliette. They also knew that Caroline would be grieving an entirely other man, the father who had let her down and ignored her for her entire life. He loved her, but he didn’t understand her, so he didn’t try.
They were still talking when Thad picked up Caroline and her family at the airport. Her children had been inconsolable when she told them when they came home from school that their grandfather had died. No one had expected it. Peter was equally stunned when he got home and Caroline was packing. She hadn’t wanted to call and tell him at the office. He had to pack in less than half an hour, and cancel his appointments for the coming days.
The three sisters hadn’t spoken of it, but Caroline assumed that the funeral would be within the next few days. She didn’t see any point to dragging it out, and she was sure her sisters wouldn’t either. She hated the current trend of private family services, and then a memorial six months later. By then, she hoped to have put the grief behind her, and gotten on with living. What was the point of waiting? But she didn’t know how Gemma and Kate would feel or what they would want.
They’d each had a glass of wine late that evening when they talked about it. Caroline and her family were staying in the guesthouse her father had built for her after she got married, hoping to inspire her to come home more, with Peter. But she never had. She had only used it a few times in the sixteen years since he built it. Gemma was staying in the guesthouse she occupied on her infrequent visits.
All three of them had gone to see Juliette that night, hugged her, and said how sorry they were. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she couldn’t stop crying. They left her after a few minutes to collect herself before they had to wade through the paperwork and formalities of “making the arrangements” the next day.
It sounded morbid to all three of them, and Juliette had said she was dreading it. She had no real right to make decisions, since they weren’t married, but the girls wanted to include her. Their relationship had lasted longer and been warmer and happier than most marriages. If not a mother figure, she had always been a good friend to them, and never created problems with their father, or interfered with his relationship with them. If anything, she had always helped them, and reminded their father to make more effort with them, to understand them better. She had always been a good influence on him.
With a second bottle of wine, back in Kate’s kitchen, they started telling funny stories about him, and reminiscing about their childhood. Caroline had the least to contribute, since she had spent the least possible amount of time with him, intentionally. Listening to them now, she wondered if she had missed something. She didn’t know the man they were describing, and her memories of him were entirely different from Kate’s and Gemma’s. But Kate had worked with him as an adult for the last twenty years, and Gemma could do no wrong. He worshipped her. Caroline had been a ghost in his life. He had never sought to try to bridge the gap between them. She couldn’t even explain now why she hadn’t been to the ranch in the past three years. She was busy with the children, she and Peter entertained his most important clients, and they traveled with the children on school vacations. There was never time to come home and see her father.
“You ran away from him, Caro,” Gemma said quietly, seeing the questions in her sister’s eyes, and Caroline nodded. She didn’t deny it.
“I know I did. But he never tried to find me, or even know me.”
“Maybe that was your job and not his,” Gemma said softly, “once you grew up. But I was no better. I haven’t been home in nearly a year. It’s hard to
come home sometimes, and I got tired of fighting with him.”
“We all did,” Kate chimed in.
“You never fought with him,” Gemma corrected her. “That was my role. All you ever did was please him, or try to.” That was Kate’s place in the family. The pleaser and peacemaker. It surprised her that Gemma sounded harsh about it. In a way, her relationship with their father had been the easiest of all. They were workmates and colleagues as well as father and daughter.
After they finished the second bottle of wine, they went back to their respective cottages, Caroline in the barely used guesthouse, where Peter and her children were sound asleep, and Gemma to the guesthouse she was familiar with. Kate was in her own cottage, but nothing felt right anymore, not even her father’s house with his belongings everywhere.
As they left Kate’s cottage, Gemma turned to look at her sisters. “We’re orphans now, aren’t we? No mother and no father.” They couldn’t mourn a mother they had never known and didn’t remember, only the idea of her, but their father was all too real, and they knew exactly who and what they were mourning.
“I don’t think they call it ‘orphans’ at our age. We’re grown-ups. We’re supposed to be standing on our own two feet, with children of our own. Caro’s the only one who’s managed to do that. I was his willing slave, and you were always his favorite. That doesn’t make us orphans,” Kate said firmly. She didn’t like what Gemma said.
“I was always Daddy’s Girl. He called me that, he even said it to other people,” Gemma said sadly.
“I guess we all have to grow up now,” Kate said, but she wasn’t at all sure how to do it. Who was going to run the ranch now? She knew the others would expect her to do it, but it couldn’t possibly be the same without her father to guide her, even if he didn’t recognize her contributions. She realized now that she had let her father run her world. And there was no one to do it now.
* * *
—
Their visit to the mortuary the next day was more depressing than any of them had expected. They were suddenly faced with painful decisions. Cremation or burial? If cremated, would they put the urn into the ground or divide up his ashes between the three of them and Juliette? And where would they bury him, if they did, at the cemetery or on the ranch? Would they have a large church service, or private family interment? Someone had to write the obituary. Caroline said she’d do it, since she was the writer among them, so she was the obvious choice.
They decided to hold a proper funeral, and put an announcement in the local paper, since his life had been there for nearly forty years, and he was respected in the community. They needed to pick a photograph for the program. Kate said she’d order the flowers, and Gemma said she’d choose the music. Juliette made only a few minor requests, and was relieved when they decided not to have an open casket, but to have him cremated. They were going to divide his ashes among them. Caroline and Kate were going to scatter them at the ranch, Gemma wanted to take her share with her to scatter in the ocean near L.A., and Juliette said she was going to pick a handsome box and keep them in the house with her. They thought it might be a French tradition, but didn’t know and didn’t ask.
They left the funeral home feeling drained, and went to meet Peter and Caroline’s children. They had been to visit a nearby miniature horse farm to keep them distracted. Then they went back to the ranch for lunch, and Juliette cooked for them in her kitchen. She served pâté she’d made herself that their father loved, a big salad, some cold chicken she bought on the way home, and two bottles of wine that Peter opened for her. Everything Juliette did always came out seeming French, no matter how many years she’d been there.
They went out for dinner that night, to a small Italian restaurant, and every five minutes someone came to the table to extend their condolences. They were exhausted by the time they went home.
Two days later, the service was dignified and simple, the way their father would have liked it. The church was filled to the rafters with all the people who had admired and respected him, and many who barely knew him. At the funeral, Juliette sat next to Jimmy’s daughters in the front pew with Peter, Morgan, and Billy. Thad and the senior ranch hands sat in the pew right behind them. There were faces from the past and the present.
Jimmy’s lawyer was there. They all knew him and he said on the way out of the church that he would drop off a copy of the will for each of them that afternoon. Their father had discussed it with Kate when he’d last brought it up to date, and they expected no surprises. He was leaving the ranch and any money he had divided equally among the three of them. They had decisions to make about that too. They could maintain their joint ownership, if they wished, or if any of the girls didn’t want their share of the ranch, they could sell it to the others. His only wish was that they keep it in the family. But neither Gemma nor Caroline used it, and they had no idea what to do about it. They weren’t planning to discuss it that weekend. Four days before, he’d been vital and alive, and now they were faced with reading his will, and whether or not to divide up the property and how to do it.
“We should go through his safe in the office before you two leave,” Kate said on their way back to the house, where they knew several hundred people would be waiting for them to pay their respects to the family. Gemma had called a caterer in Santa Barbara to handle it, and provide a bar and buffet, and none of them were looking forward to it.
“Do you think there’s anything important in the safe?” Caroline didn’t look eager to deal with it. The funeral had been hard enough, and she had agreed to stay for a few days, to go through her father’s personal effects with them. Peter was going to take the children back to San Francisco the day after the funeral. Since she and Gemma came so rarely, Kate wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of having them there, and they reluctantly agreed to go through his safe in the office, and some of his personal effects at the house.
In the end, hundreds of people came and went all afternoon. Peter stood on the receiving line with them, somberly greeting the guests, and speaking softly to Caroline, and occasionally his sisters-in-law. Afterward, they were too emotionally drained to deal with their father’s safe, and put it off to do the next morning.
Looking exhausted, all three sisters met in their father’s office at ten o’clock the next morning, after Peter and the children had gone. They hadn’t even read the copies of their father’s will by then, and were in no rush to do it. The lawyer had dropped off copies for Juliette and Thad too, which suggested that he had left them bequests, which seemed appropriate in Juliette’s case, to honor the twenty-four years they had spent together. And Thad had been devoted to him for nineteen years, and was almost like a son in JT’s eyes.
Kate knew the combination of the huge safe by heart, and opened it easily. There were stacks of recent ledgers relating to different aspects of their business. She was surprised to find an envelope with fifty thousand dollars in it. It was unusual for him to keep that much cash on hand. Kate put it on the desk, along with everything she pulled out of the safe. It all related to the business. At the very back, she found a thick manila envelope with her father’s handwriting. It said “Scarlett” on it, their mother. Kate wondered if there were sentimental papers in it, maybe letters from her, or photographs, or her death certificate. Both Gemma and Caroline noticed the envelope as Kate set it down, and they spotted their mother’s name.
“Do we really want to go through that?” Gemma asked, looking uncomfortable. “Isn’t one death enough to deal with?” Caroline looked as though she agreed with her, but said nothing.
“We might as well do it now,” Kate said, and removed the yellowed tape that sealed it. There were several smaller envelopes inside. One looked like a letter and was addressed to him in an unfamiliar hand, and there was a file of court documents, which Kate opened and started to flip through, and then looked up at her sisters.
“What
is it?” Caroline glanced over at her, startled by the look on her sister’s face. It was obviously something she hadn’t expected.
“Did Dad ever say anything to you about their being divorced before Mom died?” Kate asked in barely more than a whisper.
“Of course not,” Gemma answered. “They weren’t divorced. They were married when she died. What is that?”
Without a word, she handed the file to Gemma, who flipped through several pages, and then handed the file to Caroline with a look of amazement. “Shit, Kate, why didn’t he tell us?” Gemma said, shocked.
“I don’t know,” Kate said.
“He never told me either,” Caroline whispered, staring at both of them.
There was a divorce decree from the state of Texas, dissolving the marriage of James Edward Tucker and Scarlett Jane Carson Tucker. “They must have gotten divorced right before she died. Maybe he didn’t want to spoil our illusions about them, or he was embarrassed. There was a stigma attached to divorce then,” Kate said as she continued to glance through the papers, and then stopped at another yellowed sheet of paper, and handed it to them. It was even more shocking than the first one. Caroline looked over Gemma’s shoulder as she read it. Then both of them stared at Kate. It was a relinquishment of custody and parental rights by Scarlett Tucker. She had given up all right to them, even to visitation.
“Oh my God, why would she do that?” Caroline said, profoundly unnerved by it. With children of her own, she couldn’t imagine her mother giving them up. In a separate envelope there was a canceled check to Scarlett for three thousand dollars, on the same date as the relinquishment papers were signed.
“Do you think he paid her to give us up?” Gemma looked stricken.
“I have no idea,” Kate said, dumbstruck. “He never told me any of this. All I know is what you know. She died, he said he was heartbroken, and a year later we moved out here. He never liked talking about her.”
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